Ghosn is saying to things- Nissan will select the "best" performing battery for "future"- LG is right now the best battery maker

So, the question is - what is this "future" Ghosn talks abot ? Is that Leaf Gen 2 or further into the future ? After all, if that future is Leaf 2, Ghosn still can't be talking about changing the battery supply now - and make the 2016/17 timeline for Leaf 2.

Prabhakar Patil (CEO of the LG Chem Power battery unit) says that the progress made between 2010, when the first Chevy Volt went on sale, and the batteries he forsees in 2017, has been faster than he anticipated back then.

"There is not one thing you can point to and say, 'That’s what the breakthrough was,' ” he told ChargedEVs.

"It’s a combination of several things."

Patil expects that a $30,000 electric car with a range of 200 miles will be commercially viable by 2017 or 2018.

While GM hasn't confirmed that its upcoming 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV will use LG Chem cells, that is widely assumed to be the case--and the Bolt EV to be the car he refers to.

I saw a video of the Tennessee plant showing the electrodes being imported from Japan on a role. Soif only the electrodes changed, then the Tennessee plant would still be used. I would think even otherchanges could be made, and the Tennessee plant would still be used. Makes me wonder if the Teslaplant will make there own electrodes.

I just read that Carlos Ghosen said LG has figured out a way to substantially reduce the cost of producing Li-ion batteries while simultaneously increasing the energy density. This is supposedly how GM plans to introduce a 200 mile mile Chevy Bolt for $35K in 2017. He said Nissan needs to stay competitive and if necessary, they would drop partner NEC for LG if they had to for the next gen Leaf. And that they would sell their battery-making operations to LG who would then produce batteries in the same locations.

It is too early to speculate, but I hope the same technology would be used to produce replacement batteries for 1st gen Leafs as well. Mine has 9 bars, 4 years and 3 months old and 43K miles. I'm estimating I'll need to replace the battery in about 2~3 years and am not interested in the same tech as current.